All JV Academic Teams are invited to the inaugural Alpharetta JV Tournament, to be held at Alpharetta High School on October 31, 2009. Players must be in tenth grade or below to be eligible; middle school teams are welcome. Registration will be in the cafeteria from 8:30-9:00. Lunch will be available for order.

This tournament will use the Fall Novice question set, which is being written by current high school and college players and will be played at various sites throughout the country. The match format will be 20 tossups with 20 three-part bonuses.

Fees: The entry fee will be $55/team, with a discount of $5 per buzzer set (max 1 per team).

Chattahoochee is very interested in attending this tournament with 2-3 teams. Also, do you need any additional workers? We might be able to send over a few of our juniors and seniors to help out. Just let me know. Thanks!

As of now, the field is full. Any further teams registering will go on the waiting list. We also received the questions today, and, given the reviews coming back from the other sites, are looking forward to a great set.

Last edited by AlphaQuizBowler on Fri Oct 23, 2009 11:57 am, edited 1 time in total.

It looks like you have 29 teams registered - is that correct? We would like to make it an even 30 with a 3rd team if possible. If I have counted incorrectly, please just add our 3rd team to the Waiting List. Thanks!

Thanks for hosting this tournament. It is so convenient for us to come, I hope y'all will continue hosting one for quite some time.

When will the final results be posted?

Some initial thoughts: the questions were quite good (even though some of them were well above the JV level). The set seemed well written with few strange clauses or grammatical errors. In the future some more work/research will need to be done to balance the initial groupings. Off the top of my head I remember one group of 6 teams produced 3 4-1 teams each averaging 288 points per game while another had 1 5-0 team averaging less than 230 ppg (and no other team averaging more than 200). This produced some rather wild playoff groupings that limited teams involvement in the top grouping (one of the massive problems with rebracketing for playoffs, but I will discuss that elsewhere). Additionally, not using bouncebacks on bonuses is ridiculous! This particular format does not prepare teams for the majority of JV and MS tournaments in GA, which is the only place most of the teams that were in attendance will ever compete. For example, Brookwood JV, Chattahoochee JV/MS, and both the GATA MS and JV tournaments use bouncebacks on all bonuses. And, due to the lack of quality JV and MS tournaments out there, those that do exist should help prepare teams for the State Championships, which are a big deal (maybe the biggest) to most MS and JV teams in this state (and, thus, most of the teams that went to this tournament). I heard several coaches and many more players wondering why there weren't bouncebacks on the bonuses. I agree with them.

I'm generally pretty agnostic on whether any particular tournament should use bouncebacks, so my statement here isn't motivated by a belief that Georgia tournaments shouldn't feature bouncebacks or whatever. But honestly, if you aren't "prepared for bouncebacks" as a player adequately by being told "be ready to answer the other team's bonus parts, too, because you'll be asked them if they're missed," then I don't really know how much better one tournament is going to make you. So I don't really see this omission being too poisonous.

We may have to have a thread about the general features of single-elim and rebracketed playoffs later, but I'm interested in your thoughts. For one thing, I'm not sure if it's possible to do enough research to bracket perfectly on teams that would qualify as novices for this tournament, so this actually might be a decent application of swiss-paired prelims. But more importantly, rebracketing into single-elimination doesn't help too much. Suppose we take the top three teams from each bracket, including the 5-0 230ppg team, the second and third team from that bracket, and the three 4-1 288+ppg teams. One third-place team gets to face the softball 5-0 team, and another extremely strong third-place team (like the 4-1 one) might have to face a strong first-place team. In fact, every team in the round of n is going to have a different difficulty path to the round of n/2. On the other hand, every team in the top playoff bracket has an objective of the same difficulty (well, the difficulty only varies with their skill level): beat everyone else. Your argument is an argument for playing some seeding games before forming prelim brackets and for taking as many teams as possible into the top bracket.

First of all, I'd like to thank all the teams that attended our first high school tournament. I hope everyone had a good time and, hopefully, got what they came for: good games of quizbowl. I'd also like to thank everyone who worked on the Fall Novice set for letting us mirror it, and remind everyone that, because the questions are being played in other places at later dates, they should not be discussed in the forum (Though the editors are asking for feedback by email).

RountreeCHS wrote:
Some initial thoughts: the questions were quite good (even though some of them were well above the JV level). The set seemed well written with few strange clauses or grammatical errors.

I agree that the questions were, at some points, too difficult for JV. I had hoped that the grammatical errors in the set would be ironed out by the time we got it.

In the future some more work/research will need to be done to balance the initial groupings. Off the top of my head I remember one group of 6 teams produced 3 4-1 teams each averaging 288 points per game while another had 1 5-0 team averaging less than 230 ppg (and no other team averaging more than 200).

While I agree that the initial groupings were a bit unbalanced, it wasn't due to lack of work on my part. I looked at stats from Cedar Shoals (though those were missing bonus stats, which would have been useful), talked to players on my team who played at Cedar Shoals JV, and looked at stats from Alabama, where Hoover and Dorman's JV players competed. I was counting on Norcross playing better, but they competed with two players today, so their prelim bracket was weaker.

This produced some rather wild playoff groupings that limited teams involvement in the top grouping (one of the massive problems with rebracketing for playoffs, but I will discuss that elsewhere).

It's a bit hyperbolic to use words like "wild" and "massive problems." After the prelims, there were three teams that seem like they would deserve the 5th and 6th spot in the playoff bracket: Northview A, Duluth, and Woodward. Northview A got in due to their 5-0 record, and Woodward got the last spot because of the previously announced tiebreaker of points per bonus. Seeing as Northview A placed higher than Woodward in the playoff bracket, I'm not sure you can say their spot there was undeserved due to an easier prelim bracket.

In any case, is this worse than single-elimination? Our playoff structure clearly determined a champion, Dorman A (who cleared the field by 2 wins). In just doing that, it fulfilled everything that single-elim can do. In addition, it created an accurate ranking of the entire field without extra rounds, as it takes 5 rounds to run a 32-team single-elim, and it allowed teams to compete against other teams of similar strength in the afternoon. If there are any specific instances where you think a team should have been placed in a different bracket, I will address those, but it's inaccurate to call the playoff groupings "rather wild."

Additionally, not using bouncebacks on bonuses is ridiculous! This particular format does not prepare teams for the majority of JV and MS tournaments in GA, which is the only place most of the teams that were in attendance will ever compete. For example, Brookwood JV, Chattahoochee JV/MS, and both the GATA MS and JV tournaments use bouncebacks on all bonuses. And, due to the lack of quality JV and MS tournaments out there, those that do exist should help prepare teams for the State Championships, which are a big deal (maybe the biggest) to most MS and JV teams in this state (and, thus, most of the teams that went to this tournament). I heard several coaches and many more players wondering why there weren't bouncebacks on the bonuses. I agree with them.

I disagree that not using bouncebacks "ridiculous," as there exist many formats that don't use them (including NAQT nationals). As for preparing teams for other tournaments, I think that the chief way a tournament does this is by exposing players to questions on important academic topics, which I am fairly confident our tournament achieved. To say that players need to practice a certain format to win at quizbowl, in my opinion, misses out on the main purpose of the game.

I tried to be clear as I could about not using bouncebacks by sending out rules a week ago stating that bouncebacks would not be used.

Last edited by AlphaQuizBowler on Sun Nov 01, 2009 2:16 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd like to thank Alpharetta for hosting a fairly smoothly-run event yesterday. I was impressed that a ten-round event was over by 4:00 PM. While the quality of readers was a little uneven, it was perfectly acceptable for a novice tourney, and the opportunity to put my 9th and 10th grade teams into an event with quality questions largely geared to their level was a real treat. Yes, there were a couple of issues with the set in general--bonuses that were far too advanced for 10th graders in a few cases, and bonuses that were freebie 30s to a team with a pulse in a few others, but on the whole, I thought the set did exactly what it was intended to do--convince my players that they need to focus on learning some of the canonical material in literature, art, and music, while encouraging them to take biology, chemistry, and physics at least once each.

The lack of bouncebacks didn't bother me particularly, as that's standard in NAQT and ACF play, but having them wouldn't have bothered me either--it probably would have helped my 9th grade team immensely, because they seemed to have a lot of bad luck getting physics and chem bonuses. It wasn't a dealbreaker for me either way, as I think that any team that intends to play outside of their own area at the national level will need to be prepared for all varieties of tourney. This wasn't a local tourney--it was a mirror of a national set, so keeping the format in line with the national format seems reasonable to me. I have lots of other local tourneys I can use to prep my kids for Alabama's wacky format if needed, even if they aren't novice or JV geared.

As far as the rebracketing for the championship goes, I suppose I understand why, say, CHS B might be irritated that they didn't get to play in the top grouping because they ended up in the circle of death with two other solid teams. On the other hand, having a six team round robin for the top spot is ambitious, especially given that it meant a 10 match day for 18 teams. That's a lot for JV, even if they need to get used to it. My kids were absolutely exhausted by the end of the tourney, and we still had a three hour ride back home. Still, I thought that given that the tourney took the top team of each pool, then pulled that last team by PPG, and given that said final spot went to a team that was also in a circle of death, there's only so much you can do without expanding the playoff or making it a one-and-done bracketed playoff, which I'm not a big fan of.

Anyhow, I just wanted to thank Alpharetta for hosting this event. It was a good experience, and I hope next year will see another novice packet.

I suppose I should apologize for Norcross's lack of representation. Any way it works out we will probably mess up any form of bracketing this year. Our JV team consists of one veteran sophomore who is yet to show up to a tournament this year, a rookie sophomore who attended his first tournament last weekend, and 6-8 freshmen, all but two of which are yet to compete. I'm not sure if we can pull a consistent team out of that bunch; that's where we may cause a problem for TDs like yourself.

I haven't talked with the team yet but I'd imagine they enjoyed the tournament and appreciated playing on questions like those. The score keeping is impressive and doesn't seem to have taken up any time at all. That's about all that I can comment on at this point.

Andrew-
You don't have to apologize; it's entirely up to your team who they bring to a tournament. It just made the brackets a bit different than expected. I hope that your team enjoyed the tournament, and I wish you luck in building a consistent team this year.

You guys did a strong job of organizing and pulling off your first tournament. Hosting an event with 30 teams and doing it in a timely fashion is no small accomplishment. Congrats to you and Mr Ashfpord and all the AHS people.

I hope you guys will consider using bounceback bonuses next year. Hearing question after question going unanswered is a frustrating thing when you do not have a shot at answering them. Using bouncebacks keeps every player's head into every querstion, at least theoretically.

I would like to echo Mr. Rutsky and Mr. Barry's thoughts about the job y'all did at hosting the tournament - it was a smooth and efficient effort. Again, I applaud the work y'all put in to making it so enjoyable for so many.

Now, onto the issues I had with the overall tournament experience, which are not earth-shattering by any means, so please take these as constructive criticisms. As a fellow Fulton County quizbowl aficionado, I am only interested in what is best for your program (and tournament).
1) The prelim groupings were unbalanced. This is supported by the prelim results; you can't use what happened in the playoffs as an argument that the groups were balanced evenly. Also, I never claimed that you had not done any research. I know you too well, William, to think that you would just put some teams together and think that it was OK. What I said was that more research could have been done beyond just looking at stats or talking with other players from other teams. Did you speak with any coaches before putting your groups together? I bet if you did they would have told you, for example, that Duluth, while not heavily active at the Varsity level, has one of the best Middle School programs in the entire state, and should, therefore, be thought of as a 1 or 2 "seed" in initial groupings at most JV tournaments. Again, this doesn't mean you did a poor job at grouping teams initially, it just means that you could have done better with a little more work/research. Additionally, it means that some of your prelim groupings were obviously weaker than others, and, due to the playoff structure, this mistake became magnified as the tournament progressed.
2) I am not going to spend an entire page here discussing some of the obvious issues with rebracketing for playoffs. I am also not arguing that single-elimination is inherently better, nor did I say such a thing in my original post. However, I will say that rebracketing certainly does limit a team's chances at finishing above a certainly ceiling placed on them by factors both within and outside of their control. This result seems to me to be somewhat antithetical to the nature of playoffs specifically and to competition in general. Do you understand what I am saying? Further, I am not sure I would agree with you that this playoff format produced an "accurate ranking of the entire field" (for reasons #1 and #2). I would be happy to talk with you about specific teams in person or via email, but here I will say I believe there are probably 1-2 teams at the bottom and top of each of the top 3 playoff groupings that were incorrectly "seeded".
3) This was not a national championship, nor was it an NAQT tournament, nor was is a college-level (or run) event. Contrary to what Mr. Rutsky wrote, this was a local tourney in the real sense that 26 of the 30 teams were from GA (and most were from metro-ATL). While the question set may have come from elsewhere, I am not sure why the rules had to follow? What I said about preparing teams for other tournaments in our state stands. I made that statement not based on my personal opinions, but on what I heard other coaches and players asking, and that was "why aren't there any bouncebacks?" You can understand that certain coaches and players want to do well at other tournaments, right? And, this desire might mean they want to play on formats that are similar to most (if not all) of the other tournaments they attend during the year. It is not that I thought you did a poor job at communicating the lack of bouncebacks to the teams; did someone claim that? Like you stated in your post, since you did such a good job of getting each team as many rounds as possible, it seems odd that you would eliminate the bouncebacks, thereby reducing the number of questions in all those (extra) rounds that teams had a vested interest in paying close attention to and being able to answer. It would stand to reason that this would reduce your ability to accurately gauge what team "X" knows and doesn't know in comparison to team "Y" in any given round.

Mr. Rutsky,

To what "national format" are you referring? I have been involved in quizbowl for many years, and have played and coached teams on so many different formats used at so many different places that I could not count them all. I have never heard of a "national format" before, and I am unsure what you mean by that. Please clarify.

RountreeCHS wrote:2) I am not going to spend an entire page here discussing some of the obvious issues with rebracketing for playoffs. I am also not arguing that single-elimination is inherently better, nor did I say such a thing in my original post. However, I will say that rebracketing certainly does limit a team's chances at finishing above a certainly ceiling placed on them by factors both within and outside of their control. This result seems to me to be somewhat antithetical to the nature of playoffs specifically and to competition in general. Do you understand what I am saying? Further, I am not sure I would agree with you that this playoff format produced an "accurate ranking of the entire field" (for reasons #1 and #2). I would be happy to talk with you about specific teams in person or via email, but here I will say I believe there are probably 1-2 teams at the bottom and top of each of the top 3 playoff groupings that were incorrectly "seeded".

It's indisputable that poor initial brackets can have bad ramifications for playoff brackets being fairly seeded. It is unclear that there is a preferable system for playoffs, though I'm interested in your thoughts there.

What I said about preparing teams for other tournaments in our state stands. I made that statement not based on my personal opinions, but on what I heard other coaches and players asking, and that was "why aren't there any bouncebacks?" You can understand that certain coaches and players want to do well at other tournaments, right? And, this desire might mean they want to play on formats that are similar to most (if not all) of the other tournaments they attend during the year.

I understand that people want to play on formats they'll see again, but it's not clear to me that playing one tournament without bouncebacks is hurtful to a team that aspires to do well at tournaments that employ them. A simple reminder that at this tournament, pay special attention to the opponent's bonus, is probably enough, right?

Like you stated in your post, since you did such a good job of getting each team as many rounds as possible, it seems odd that you would eliminate the bouncebacks, thereby reducing the number of questions in all those (extra) rounds that teams had a vested interest in paying close attention to and being able to answer. It would stand to reason that this would reduce your ability to accurately gauge what team "X" knows and doesn't know in comparison to team "Y" in any given round.

Possibly, but not necessarily. Bouncebacks make knowledge of early clues less valuable, because getting a tossup isn't worth the exclusive chance at the bonus; it's worth first shot at the bonus parts. If we had an external metric for which team is better, we'd be able to measure how valuable knowledge of a tossup's early clues ought to be, I suppose, and thereby judge whether bouncebacks or no is more fair.

So let's clarify - Georgia, a state known for producing lots of arguments about how we should be open to a bunch of different formats, is now producing arguments about how we should not be using this one format that is completely legitimate and used all over the country?
Also, saying that we should have to ask about middle school quizbowl to seed our high school tournaments seems to me to be crazy and is something that a tournament director should not do in favor of fixing much more important problems in running tournaments.

Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs

"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White

Mr. Rountree-
Thank you for your comments. I definitely want an accurate evaluation of this year's tournament in order to make next year's better. I am willing to admit that the prelim brackets were a bit skewed, but I still fail to see how this significantly affected the afternoon rounds in the specific instance of our tournament. Do you agree that the rankings provided by the prelim and playoff brackets are accurate in isolation? That is, each team received fair placement in its own bracket when compared to the other teams in that bracket? Because, in that case, Northview A (record 2-3) was fairly placed ahead of Woodward (who went 1-4 against the same teams in playoff bracket A). Woodward tied with Duluth in the prelim bracket, and Duluth beat everyone in the B playoff bracket. Thus, by a chain of wins every team (with one exception*) in the A bracket was better than those in the B bracket. For example, Northview A placed ahead of Woodward, who tied with Duluth, who placed ahead of Dorman B. Thus, Northview A deserved a higher ranking at this tournament than Dorman B.

*The exception would be between Woodward and Duluth, who tied in record in the prelims and finished 6-7 overall. It would have been better to play off the tie before playoff seeding, but, given that was logistically messy, points per bonus was the next best thing.

You can email me with specific teams; I would appreciate that.

As for bouncebacks: The problem is, I think there is a trade-off between bouncebacks and number of rounds. Bouncebacks make rounds run longer, so you can't get in as many rounds in the same amount of time. On a less important note, bouncebacks are much harder to do stats for, as well.

Finally, I don't think that rebracketing places any ceiling on teams based on "factors...outside of their control." A team that wins every match will still win in rebracketing (indeed, Dorman did just that). Any team can make it into the playoff bracket by winning the prelim bracket. If you didn't get into the top bracket, it's because you lost to a team that did.

Your comment that any team that did not make the top bracket probably lost a team that did is not exactly right in the case of what happened in one prelim grouping Saturday. Brookwood-A lost to Chattahoochee-B (both teams finished with 4-1 records)but Brookwood-A made the top playoff bracket and Chattahoochee-B did not.

Your comment that any team that did not make the top bracket probably lost a team that did is not exactly right in the case of what happened in one prelim grouping Saturday. Brookwood-A lost to Chattahoochee-B (both teams finished with 4-1 records)but Brookwood-A made the top playoff bracket and Chattahoochee-B did not.

You're right, Mr. Barry. However, Chattahoochee B lost to Oak Mountain A, who lost to Brookwood A to create a circle of death. Optimally, the ties would be broken by playing more games, but, in the absence of that, we used the tiebreaking procedure that we announced at the beginning (points per bonus). In any case, the general point still stands that Chattahoochee B had no "ceiling" placed on them. Their loss to Oak Mountain A is what kept them out of the top 6. Finishing 8th, though, is an accomplishment that I think Chattahoochee B can be proud of.

3) This was not a national championship, nor was it an NAQT tournament, nor was is a college-level (or run) event. Contrary to what Mr. Rutsky wrote, this was a local tourney in the real sense that 26 of the 30 teams were from GA (and most were from metro-ATL). While the question set may have come from elsewhere, I am not sure why the rules had to follow? What I said about preparing teams for other tournaments in our state stands.

Mr. Rountree, I respectfully disagree with you. This was advertised as Alpharetta's MIRROR of the Fall Novice Packet. The term mirror implies that they are running the same questions in basically the same format as one would find elsewhere. This was not advertised as a Georgia format tourney; I would argue that it was an attempt to bring a national tourney into Georgia, just as a mirror of Harvard's Fall Tourney by Hoover would be an attempt to do the same in Alabama. Could we reformat the tourney packet or change the rules of play? Certainly. Would that still be a mirror of the HFT? I don't think so. At any rate, bouncebacks or not, we would have attended this event, but I think that the issue of whether William chose to use the bouncebacks was an attempt on his part to be consistent with the quizbowl community as presented on hsquizbowl.com, and to the nature of his role as a mirror site.

Mr. Rutsky,

To what "national format" are you referring? I have been involved in quizbowl for many years, and have played and coached teams on so many different formats used at so many different places that I could not count them all. I have never heard of a "national format" before, and I am unsure what you mean by that. Please clarify.

I am referring to the NAQT and ACF formats, which seem to make up the predominant number of tournaments that are advertised on this site. I don't recall off the top of my head if PACE has bouncebacks, as I haven't had the opportunity to play in a PACE tourney in several years. While I have only been in quizbowl a mere decade, and have not travelled the quizbowl world, I think I'm on pretty solid ground saying that the 20 question, 3 part bonus format has become a standard common to much of the nation, even as my own state continues to hold on to our own odd four-quarter format for some tournaments.

NAQT Nationals- has the clock determine the number of tossups in a game (so its usually anywhere b/w 18 and 26) and many different structures of bonus. without bouncebacks.

PACE Nationals- has always had 28 tossups a game with three different bonus structures (although this is supposed to change) with bouncebacks.

ACF Nationals- does have 20 tossups and 3-part bonuses without bouncebacks, but except for an occassional 4-5 teams, isn't a high school quizbowl organization at all.

Questions Unlimited, KY's Governor's Cup, and the Pansonic/NTAE, which despite being possibly defunct or irrelevant to some based on an array of other factors, all have other different formats of quizbowl.

My quizbowl career/knowledge doesn't go back that far, but it seems like between NAQT, PACE, ASCN, QU, and Panasonic, there hasn't ever(or at least in the past ten years) been a single "nationals" tournament written in the 20TU 3-part bonus format.

Also, both NAQT and HSAPQ sell sets of different formats with varying numbers of tossups and bonuses

I guess I'd just have to agree with Mr. Rountree that I dont really see what the "national format" is either.

Last edited by Nick on Tue Nov 03, 2009 1:50 am, edited 1 time in total.

That being said, if you go around the nation, you'll find that the format most commonly played is the tossup/bonus format with 20 tossups and 20 nonrebounding bonuses. This is for not only collegiate tournaments, but also a large number of high school tourneys using NAQT/housewritten/HSAPQ questions as well.

I mean, I don't have any problems with bouncebacks (and personally prefer them in many cases), but I don't think that it's a legitimate criticism of this tournament to say that it doesn't adequately prepare people for other events because it lacks bouncebacks. In any case, you could just as easily say that this event does a better job of preparing teams for National competition (since both HSNCT & NSC are much more similar to Fall Novice than to the GATA format) than other events do--and I'd think that doing well at nationals should supersede doing well at state, hmm?

Whether or not a tournament has bouncebacks is basically immaterial, because as we all know, it is in fact a legitimate format used many places in the country, and it allows players to play fair games that can contribute to a properly decided tournament championship. As long as it meets the criteria of producing a fair tournament, I don't think anyone should be criticizing the choice to use them. So what if it's not the most common format in your particular area?

Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs

"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White

I see your point about the knowledge of early clues becoming somewhat less valuable if you use bouncebacks. However, the opportunity to answer first on a bonus is a HUGE advantage that cannot be overlooked.

Charlie,

While I am somewhat amused by the rather broad brushstrokes you use to paint my state's approach to quizbowl theory, I believe you have completely missed my earlier point in regard to bouncebacks. Many people in GA - and I am certainly not trying to speak for the entire state - value the idea that multiple formats are acceptable for high school quizbowl. At no point did I say that 20 Tossups and Bonuses without bouncebacks was not a legitimate format. What I said was that it was perhaps not the best format to use at that particular JV tournament. I agree with Andy that it is not harmful to expose the teams that came to a different format, but I am confident that using bouncebacks would have been more helpful for most of the teams there. Let me explain it another way. As I stated before, many (or most) of the teams that went to Alpharetta JV will attend 1 or more of the following tournaments this year: Brookwood JV, Chattahoochee JV, and/or GATA JV. Brookwood's JV tournament has used 3 parts and 4 quarters in the past; Chattahoochee's tournament uses 2 parts; and, the GATA State JV Championship uses straight Tossups and Bonuses. However, one unifying component of ALL these different formats is that they use bouncebacks on ALL bonuses. That is the point I am making in stating that having the bouncebacks would have given more teams exposure to a more common format used in this state, thus preparing them better for what is to come later in the year. Also, I wasn't advocating William needed to consult with MS quizbowl people to "seed" a high school tournament. What I said was that since this was a JV event (with several MS teams present as well), it would have perhaps been wise to consult things other than stats and players before initially "seeding" the teams. That way "smallish" errors like putting Duluth, Woodward, and CHS B in one pool might have been avoided.

William,

I do like getting to hear more than 5-6 rounds at tournaments. I particularly like getting to hear more rounds and still be done at a reasonable time. Your tournament accomplished both these things, and I am impressed with your efforts. However, there is some trade-off, as Mr. Barry pointed out, between adding the bouncebacks and adding more rounds that I think could be addressed before next year's event. I would be happy to discuss this further with you in person or via email.

Mr. Rutsky (and Charles),

Well, we agree to disagree then. There are certainly a lot of tournaments on this site that are formatted like NAQT or ACF; I am not sure that a predominant number of them are formatted like those two or not as I do not have the time to look at each one. Perhaps someone else does? Regardless, there is a wider world of quizbowl out there than what is on this site.

As Nick pointed out, PACE does have bouncebacks. And, in terms of a national format, I would be interested to know what all the states playing high school quizbowl use, particularly since there are many states that have no (or VERY little) representation on this board. I feel confident that a majority of them do NOT just use 20/20 for their tournaments. To my knowledge, none of the states touching GA just use 20/20 at their tournaments, though several tournaments in those states do employ that particular format. Thus, you are correct that it might be a common format, but saying it is a/the standard format for much of the nation might be a bit of an exaggeration. It is a legitimate format, just like 4 quarters, 3 parts, 2 parts, etc. are legitimate formats. There is NO standard, universal high school quizbowl format. Do you believe there needs to be one?

RountreeCHS wrote:I see your point about the knowledge of early clues becoming somewhat less valuable if you use bouncebacks. However, the opportunity to answer first on a bonus is a HUGE advantage that cannot be overlooked.

Well, it's kind of the point, isn't it? Shouldn't the team that knows more stuff get more points?

Many people in GA - and I am certainly not trying to speak for the entire state - value the idea that multiple formats are acceptable for high school quizbowl.

However, one unifying component of ALL these different formats is that they use bouncebacks on ALL bonuses. That is the point I am making in stating that having the bouncebacks would have given more teams exposure to a more common format used in this state, thus preparing them better for what is to come later in the year.

So they give you a different format (which is what you've been advocating for a while now), and then you're against it?

Also, I wasn't advocating William needed to consult with MS quizbowl people to "seed" a high school tournament. What I said was that since this was a JV event (with several MS teams present as well), it would have perhaps been wise to consult things other than stats and players before initially "seeding" the teams. That way "smallish" errors like putting Duluth, Woodward, and CHS B in one pool might have been avoided.

What else would there be to consult, then?

Well, we agree to disagree then. There are certainly a lot of tournaments on this site that are formatted like NAQT or ACF; I am not sure that a predominant number of them are formatted like those two or not as I do not have the time to look at each one. Perhaps someone else does? Regardless, there is a wider world of quizbowl out there than what is on this site.

If I understand what you're saying (though I probably don't), a vast majority of tournaments announced here are either mACF format or use questions from NAQT.

And, in terms of a national format, I would be interested to know what all the states playing high school quizbowl use, particularly since there are many states that have no (or VERY little) representation on this board. I feel confident that a majority of them do NOT just use 20/20 for their tournaments. To my knowledge, none of the states touching GA just use 20/20 at their tournaments, though several tournaments in those states do employ that particular format. Thus, you are correct that it might be a common format, but saying it is a/the standard format for much of the nation might be a bit of an exaggeration. It is a legitimate format, just like 4 quarters, 3 parts, 2 parts, etc. are legitimate formats. There is NO standard, universal high school quizbowl format. Do you believe there needs to be one?

Tournaments that are not announced on the board all tend to be really bad, usually consisting of one-liners and with more hoses than the garden section of a Home Depot. Certainly there isn't a standard format (but with PACE's format change, we're certainly drifting toward more mACF tournaments), so I don't see a reason why Alphretta must use bouncebacks. Heck, two of the other three tournaments in Georgia aren't state format, so I don't see what's wrong with what they're doing.

RountreeCHS wrote:I see your point about the knowledge of early clues becoming somewhat less valuable if you use bouncebacks. However, the opportunity to answer first on a bonus is a HUGE advantage that cannot be overlooked.

Right; I'm certainly not overlooking it. I'm just saying that you can't automatically make the argument that any format with bouncebacks is automatically more fair than a format without simply by the merit of it asking more teams more questions (so it's not as cut-and-dried as you suggested that William's bounceback-free format is inherently worse).

RountreeCHS wrote:There is NO standard, universal high school quizbowl format. Do you believe there needs to be one?

I don't think there's any particular need to have a universal Quiz Bowl format, but at the very least, some sort of 2x/2x (20/20 or 26/26 as at HSNCT) format with non-rebounding bonuses is used in a plurality of tournaments (if not in an absolute majority of them), and it's certainly the format that the most people are going to be familiar with (even if they also play other formats). Thus,to say that this format was used for its commonality hardly seems unreasonable.

More importantly, though, I'm not sure how your suggestions could be realistically impelemented--your concern was that this tournament shouldn't have been scheduled when it was because it lacked bouncebacks. However, since it was the Fall Novice tournament, when else could it have been scheduled? Beyond that, if your argument is that it shouldn't have been scheduled at any time before the GATA JV championships, then wouldn't that preclude many Georgia JV teams from playing it at all (since I imagine that the end of their competition season comes with the state championship)? Are you saying that this high quality set shouldn't have been mirrored for Georgia teams at all simply because of the negligible issue of whether it has bouncebacks or not?

Earthquake wrote:Tournaments that are not announced on the board all tend to be really bad

That's probably going a little far--there are dozens of NAQT tournaments not announced on this board that are perfectly fine. That being said, just a cursory glance at the NAQT schedule tells you that 20/20 (or similar) formats tournaments are a plurality if not an absolute majority of all events--at the very least, there's no other format with nearly the same national recognition and acceptance.

If teams are getting upset over the lack of bouncebacks at this tournament, they need to reassess what their criteria is for judging tournaments.

From what I can tell, William clearly told each team that there would be no bouncebacks. If coaches/teams didn't like that format, then they shouldn't have attended the tournament or they should've at least notified William of their dissatisfaction with the format before registering. It's like buying chairs from a furniture store and then complaining that the store didn't sell you couches. Coaches/teams knew there would be no bouncebacks, they should've adjusted their quizbowl practices accordingly.

Huang wrote:If teams are getting upset over the lack of bouncebacks at this tournament, they need to reassess what their criteria is for judging tournaments.

From what I can tell, William clearly told each team that there would be no bouncebacks. If coaches/teams didn't like that format, then they shouldn't have attended the tournament or they should've at least notified William of their dissatisfaction with the format before registering. It's like buying chairs from a furniture store and then complaining that the store didn't sell you couches. Coaches/teams knew there would be no bouncebacks, they should've adjusted their quizbowl practices accordingly.

Therefore, Mr. Rountree is justified in his suggestion that Alpharetta may be better served having bouncebacks at their tournament in the future. Otherwise, many dissatisfied teams will not attend. The idea of a local tournament is one that caters to the interests of prospective teams. The complication of outside formats is not something most coaches are excited about presenting their JV team with at their first or second tournament. I can't say it is an issue requiring this much speculation, though.

RountreeCHS wrote: At no point did I say that 20 Tossups and Bonuses without bouncebacks was not a legitimate format.

RountreeCHS wrote:Additionally, not using bouncebacks on bonuses is ridiculous!

Hrm.

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:If teams are so dissatisfied that they boycott completely legitimate tournaments because of a minor formatting difference, then I question how open minded and serious teams are about good quizbowl.

Charlie is right here, of course. Anyone whose values the presence or lack of bouncebacks over the quality of the questions has a big priority problem.

Jeremy Gibbs Free Energy wrote:If teams are so dissatisfied that they boycott completely legitimate tournaments because of a minor formatting difference, then I question how open minded and serious teams are about good quizbowl.

I quoted what seemed to be an exaggeration and continued with it. To avoid confusion, I'll be straightforward:

I think, based on the time, location, and teams/players attending, that the tournament would have better served the attendees by offering bouncebacks on bonuses. The time: being early in the season. The location: in order to be consistent with other tournaments and the general preference (of the teams attending). The teams/players: young and inexperienced are not looking to be exposed to foreign formats in their first few tournaments.

The bottom line for me is this: Alpharetta people did a good job with their tournament. Some of us think it would have been better if we had used bouncebacks at Alpharetta, but AHS makes the call on that. I'm going to support AHS either way.

Saying that not having bouncebacks at a JV tournament held in the state of GA is "ridiculous" (probably a bit strong on my part) does NOT, however, equate to me saying the format is not a legitimate format that is used in other states at other tournaments (quite often, I might add). I believe I have made it sufficiently clear in other posts throughout this thread that I feel this particular tournament could have used bouncebacks, and, in doing so, appealed to a wider base of customers (both this past weekend and, hopefully, in the future). As Andrew and Mr. Barry pointed out, you appear to be conflating one discussion of mine with another. Are 20/20 tournaments without bouncebacks a legitimate format in high school quizbowl? In my opinion, yes. Would having bouncebacks at this particular tournament been more appropriate for the given clientele? Again, in my opinion, yes. Regardless, I am going to support Alpharetta no matter what format they choose as I want them and their program to be successful this year and many years to come.

Also, I never called into question the quality of the set; in fact, the first thing I said in the initial thoughts from my first post was in praise of the set: "the questions were quite good (even though some of them were well above the JV level). The set seemed well written with few strange clauses or grammatical errors." I am not sure how else you could take that? So, I will say it again, the questions were quite good; I enjoyed them as did my team (and most of the teams I spoke to for that matter).

Indeed, the coaches did receive the rules beforehand - they were basically copied and pasted from the ACF website if I recall correctly. Some coaches might not have even known what mACF is since this was a JV tournament with many players and coaches participating for the first time ever in high school quizbowl. Other coaches who are familiar with that format may have felt it impolite or rude to question a school's chosen tournament format. Still other coaches may have simply skimmed over the rules never thinking about specifically checking whether bouncebacks were being used or not because they are used at every other JV tournament in the state (at least all the ones I can think of). You can cast blame on coaches/teams, as Sandy has done, or question the commitment to quizbowl of particular teams, as Charlie has done, but I don't believe that is what this discussion should be about. It is disappointing to me that bringing up a legitimate concern about this tournament has devolved into something else entirely. As this board's founder and administrator, this isn't what you want is it?

My whole response was to the idea that the Norcross player was saying teams will boycott an event using non-rebounding bonuses in Atlanta. I was not questioning the commitment of teams currently, but rather saying that were his statement to be followed through, then I would have every reason to think teams are not serious about good quizbowl.

Charlie Dees, North Kansas City HS '08
"I won't say more because I know some of you parse everything I say." - Jeremy Gibbs

"At one TJ tournament the neg prize was the Hampshire College ultimate frisbee team (nude) calender featuring one Evan Silberman. In retrospect that could have been a disaster." - Harry White